Daesh militants reportedly ‘on the run’ after Sinjar offensive

Kurdish forces aided by USA special operations troops launched an offensive Thursday to retake Mount Sinjar and cut off a key supply line the terrorist organization uses to funnel supplies and fighters from Raqqah in Syria to Mosul in Iraq.

Speaking Friday, Massud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdish region, announced the town’s “liberation”.

“Our fearless forces will enter the town and teams of engineers will clear IEDs”, the Kurdish region’s security council (KRSC) said, referring to improvised explosive devices. Isis fighters were “defeated and on the run”, it added.

“I would also like to congratulate the people of Kurdistan in general and in particular the Yezidi Kurds, the Mir of Yezidis, Baba Sheikh and the members of the spiritual council of Yezidis on the liberation of Sinjar”, said Prime Minister Barzani in a statement. “It’s time for the Yazidi girls to raise their heads up. Today we took revenge for every Yazidi”. PKK fighters assured VICE News that the decision of whether or not they would stay would be left to the Yazidi people, the religious minority that was forced to flee when IS invaded a year ago.

Gunfire fell silent as peshmerga fighters marched into the town.

Paton Walsh said the operation to retake Sinjar was important symbolically.

Following weeks of coalition airstrikes, 36 in just the last day, and with continued coalition support, more than 7,000 Peshmerga fighters began a ground offensive Thursday to take back Sinjar.

Pockets of resistance remained Friday afternoon, according to CNN senior global correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, who is in the Sinjar area with the Peshmerga. “The fighting is continuing on all fronts but we have passed by bodies of Daesh [fighters]”.

The Kurdish offensive is supported by US-led coalition air strikes.

The operations started when the Peshmerga forces blocked most of the group’s supply lines in the area, breaking into the western neighborhoods of Shingal.

Kurdish officials said the attack on Sinjar was not part of long-mooted plans to retake either Mosul or Raqqa, across the Euphrates river in Syria. Peshmerga soldiers told CBS News they are expecting snipers, vehicle bombs, and booby traps not only on the roadside, but also inside buildings as they push further into the city.

Highway 47 is the route ISIS has been using to funnel fighters, weapons and ammo from Raqqa to Mosul, and oil to fund its Iraqi occupation. The highway, in particular, has been a major conduit for trade and the flow of fighters inside the area declared as a caliphate by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in mid-2014.

Kurdish commanders expressed concerns that a few were hiding and would blow themselves up as the peshmerga advanced.

The huge task remains of clearing Sinjar of bombs planted by Isis remains, and there is also the possibility of holdout jihadist fighters, who have kept up attacks even after other areas in Iraq were said to have been retaken.

Sinjar has been under the control of the Islamic State group for more than a year.

U.S. Defense Department spokesman Peter Cook described the operation Thursday as a collaborative effort between US advisers and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces.